Sunday, October 29, 2006

I have created an account on live.com and am playing around with their spaces.live.com service. It is an interesting attempt to compete with Google, Gmail, Blogger, etc.

In my optinion the Google services are simpler and more streamlined, but there is promise on the MSFT side. If you get a chance check out my space there, I do not plan to replicate posts on both sides.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

This one is kind of funny. Despite what Hormel may think, when I hear of SPAM emails I do think of the original product SPAM, and how most people have a disdain for the product. (Yeah, I know some people like it).

Despite that, they are a number of years too late. IF they had started up on these actions just as the slang usage of the product name started to become somewhat popular they might have had a shot at what they want today... even then it would be a risky bet.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Many people do not think about data breaches, we may hear of then on the news, or read of them in the paper from time to time, but as the following chronology shows, this is a very frequent occurance...

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Most people, even those who do not play the game have heard of World of Warcraft. Here is another article bringing the game into the light.

Less than two years after its introduction, World of Warcraft, made byBlizzard Entertainment, based in Irvine, Calif., is on pace to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year with almost seven million paying subscribers, who can log into the game and interact with other players.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Fred left me a comment on one of my older posts for BF2 and Folder Redirection. EA programmers or designers are being morons and causing problems by not thinking things through fully and not having the proper level of knowledge of the host OS system and all its features (which they ARE required to know) and to my knowledge, that is still the case today.

However, I have not been playing much BattleField 2 of late. It is still installed and minus a patch or two, I could pop back into the fight, but the only gaming I have been able to do of late is WoW, and not much at that rate.

The following are the only work-arounds I have for this issue and they are kludgy at best. If anyone else has this issue, I urge you to take the time to contact EA and vent on them (politely), and if they are clueless on how to fix it, have them contact me. (My services are not free, but I can be contracted to tell them how to fix this globally on all their products if needed).

Anyhow, usage of a local account is the best work around, though a pain in the ass imposed upon their customers by EA.

The other is manually redirecting the documents back to the local drive (if possible, depending upon if you use Group Policy or not on your home/business network).

A subset to the second option is to use another tool to mirror the data in both locations, on your network file share (as redirected by design) and on the local drive under the profile. The tool I have been using for this is SyncToy from Microsoft, which is freely available for download (requires piracy validation from MS). Nice simple tool to set-up file copies locally or across a network. There are of course other tools, but SyncToy is what I have been using thus far. Then, prior to game time, you can just manually or scriptomatically redirect the My Documents folder and not have to worry about the cached shaders, which are needed to speed up the map loading in BF2.

Otherwise, there is nothing else I am aware of to do other than bug the hell out of EA and get them to get their shit together.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Do you use Gmail? Do you like it? Want to use GMail with your domain? You just might be able to. Check out the link if you have not already heard about this beta.

This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google's webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.

I have not paid attention to some of the webs latest initatives. However Web 2.0 seems to be all the craze. My attentions have been directed elsewhere, however this site has some good primer information and links to the OpenBC site, which has a lot more links and information. Its a good road to walk down if you have nothing better to do, but almost all the items you will encounter are BETA or first generation projects which in most cases means there is still a lot to be desired.

Friday, May 12, 2006

I'm a Chevrolet Corvette!

You're a classic - powerful, athletic, and competitive. You're all about winning the race and getting the job done. While you have a practical everyday side, you get wild when anyone pushes your pedal. You hate to lose, but you hardly ever do.

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Does teleportation exist as a possibility for us? This all centers on quantum computing and advances are being made which takes us much closer to exploring the realms of teleportation, if not of human beings, but of simple objects themselves. Based upon some of the research and the advances we have made in the past twenty to thirty years, I believe we are not far off from having some very interesting (if not costly) options regarding the possibilities of teleportation.

When looking at a larger picture of 100 or 200 years down the road, there will most likely be some fundamental shifts in our collective societies to accommodate these technologies, not just of teleportation but also of advances from the general application of quantum computing.

It is amazing when looking back to the early 1970’s and then looking at today. Sure we do not have flying cars and personal robots, but we have cell phones, laptop computers and PDAs, wireless networks, more user IDs and passwords than we can remember, and a valid documentation is more critical today than it ever was.

Non-Lethal Security services are present within corporate environments and major metropolitan areas. The receptionist has been replaced by an automated voice routing system and a security desk.

The following book explores only the topic of teleportation, but gives an interesting history of quantum computing, details the current advances, and explains some of the current obstacles to teleportation. It is an interesting read, if there is a deeper interest into researching the subjects covered it also provides many references forther follow-up.

Friday, May 5, 2006

Waterloo, ON - Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM) today announced the immediate availability of BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express™, a new offering aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, branch offices and companies new to BlackBerry. BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express provides the same enterprise-level security, reliability, features and functionality of BlackBerry Enterprise Server v4.1 and is available as a free download from RIM via the Internet to any customer who purchases a new BlackBerry device.*

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Online Chat Rooms, Cybersex, and MMOs. Combine the three and what do you get? Naughty America. Seems the folks at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) are taking a stand on what is allowed and not in the gaming industry. Interesting debate this will undoubtedly kick up.

This has been bandied about quite a bit, but it is worth it to post again if you have not taken the time to read up on it,

Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition is now available as a free download and requires only basic registration. Combined with the new usage rights in Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, which allow four concurrent guest OS instances to run under the one Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition license, the use of virtualization will grow rapidly. When Windows Server code name "Longhorn" ships, the Datacenter Edition will allow unlimited Windows guest operating systems at no additional licensing costs.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Been a busy week or so with the preparations for heading out to San Diego to attend MMS 2006 (Microsoft Management Summit). I will be blogging some of thoughts and experiences from my travel to this, however due to the full schedule and exploring the little bit of San Diego that I can, do not expect a lot.

Monday Morning MMS 2006 Day -0

MMS has not officially opened yet; many people are traveling in from all parts of the country and the world. My flight is on Delta. We board the plane get settled in for a 4:05 flight, then starts to get warm in the airplane while pre-fight preparations are underway. The pilot comes on and tells us the AC is not on because the co-pilot found a fluid leak on the pre-flight walk through and that the maintenance crews were looking into it.

20 minutes and a few degrees later, they state they need to deplane us and move us to another flight. This is an inbound flight from Orlando and the same type of plane so all the seat assignments stay the same. They relayed word along that it was a cracked shut off valve, which caused the leak on the other plan.

1:20 minutes later we are airborne and traveling backward in time (I gain three hours here – Yay!) We arrive in San Diego only an hour 1:10 off the mark, not too bad. A friend of mine was on the earlier delta flight to San Diego and he stated they also needed to switch planes due to maintenance issues and they were an hour delayed or so.

A couple of sessions were scheduled on this day, but the summit does not officially open until 6PM with the opening session of the expo. This is a nice change from some of the other sessions as it contained an open bar and a LOT of food.

We managed to catch up with Dave Jaffe and grab some passes to the MyItForum part that SMSExpert is hosting again this year for Wednesday, that mission accomplished we just hovered through the expo gathering swag and drinking.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

I was searching online for the shelf life of sour kraut this evening and stumbled upon a small nugget of information. Sometime the side trails in the search for information can be interesting.

Flemish Sour AleFlemish Sour Ale is a style of beer made in Flanders that, while a small niche today, probably represents the bulk of European brewing from 1500 to 1800. It is 5-8% alcohol, sour and sweet, with little to no bitterness and hop aroma and a very complex bouquet.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

I am finally getting off my duff and researching a bit more. I've been stagnated in the here and now or in gaming worlds such that I have not been looking ahead enough. So while I play catch-up on some of the possible future directions our technology and society will run I will drop a few links here over the next few days, weeks, or months.

We all know the Giant Microsoft for what it is today and the recent past, but what about tomorrow? Microsoft has a large amount of highly skilled and intelligent people on its payroll, what are they working on when looking beyond the next product releases (Vista, Office 12, etc.)

In the summer of 2005, an international expert group was brought together for a workshop to define and produce a new vision and roadmap of the evolution, challenges and potential of computer science and computing in scientific research in the next fifteen years.The resulting document, Towards 2020 Science, sets out the challenges and opportunities arising from the increasing synthesis of computing and the sciences. It seeks to identify the requirements necessary to accelerate scientific advances –particularly those driven by computational sciences and the 'new kinds' of science the synthesis of computing and the sciences is creating. Already this synthesis has led to new fields and advances spanning genomics and proteomics, earth sciences and climatology, nanomaterials, chemistry and physics.

Microsoft like Google labs and other R&D outfits at companies have some interesting stuff in the works; some of it immediately practical others very long running in viewpoint (Like Quantum Software, not to be confused with software by the current company named Quantum today). You can check out more of Microsoft's publicly released initatives here

“Each business has different politics and skill sets of administrators, thus what works for one business does not “work” for another, when only looking at the culture and political situation of the business in question”.

It is rarely technology alone that drives a busines, but the combination of people, politics, and technology. The blend that is achieved by the company leadership is what drives the business. There are some good points in the rant, however the limitations of the current technical skill sets and policital environment are what really rule the business world, these others tools like SMS, Altiris, etc. are what fill the gaps in the different blend of those three forces.

However, when looking at the site and actually using it, it has many of the hallmark items, which usually make Google, products stand out... Attention to detail, and the little ones at that.

If you are working on a project at work and you want it to be a huge success, take the time to research some improvement in usability and enhancements usually simple little details that people miss until they use the product then say... “Wow, that is great!” Those are what make or break products and services. This can apply in any format of our lives from daily tasks at work to deep and in-depth complex problems. Make sure you pay attention to the details.

If you have not already take trip over to the Google Finance part of the site and give it a whirl, count how many little useful details they paid attention to that YOU notice... now go look at another finance page and look at what they did not notice, how many times can you say, "If they only did..." Now apply this to your own work and see what happens.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Free Games? Are they really free? Are they worth playing? Search online and you will find many onlines games which are free or in development. How many are worth playing? How many ask for too much information for a free game? How many are actually fun?

Not many. My time to play games has dwindled to an all time low. I usually only play one game at a time, and they tend to be big name well produced games, but it was not always that way. I used to tinker with game development and played many small and indie games, there are some good free and indie games out there. They are just hard to find.

If you have some free time check out Runescape. It might be a fun game? I'll post more and I tinker with it (as time allows).

Hmm... Copy protection, people love it, hate it, or do not know about it. Some don't care, some do, well what happens when companies try to bypass the copy protection market leaders? Do they play fair, or not? You decide...

Well apparently a new game called Galactic Civilizations 2 has broken with tradition and does not use any copy protection software. It's a bold move I admit, given that most people pirate anything which isn't nailed down. However it has turned out to be more commercially successful than first thought. So, seeing potential damage to their business, and in an effort to illustrate precisely why they are fast becoming the most disliked feature of the digital era, StarForce have decided to provide a working link to the warez version of Galactic Civilizations 2 on their forums. They do this supposedly to prove their somewhat obvious point that the game is being pirated - much the same way as if one person were to shoot another person during a debate on gun crime to prove their point.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

The first half of the Super Bowl is underway. Seattle is looking good and Pittsburg, while not out of it in any way, is looking a little sluggish and perhaps bruised by their long road to the Bowl. There is still a long way to go but I called SEA earlier in the week, and it looking like they have the edge. Time will tell if that continues to hold true.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

If you have a web log, this is a valuable webpage to visit. I have heard of many stories about people being sued over blog posts (Do not know anyone first hand that has), but I am not one to wait for that day. The EFF Guide for bloggers will help you to understand your rights may help you realize when you may get close to the line.